


i mean this, i'm okay (lie to me)

by kitmarlowed



Category: Endeavour (TV)
Genre: Gen, Vague Mentions of Abuse, i mean really vague, like this is just covering bases, vagueness in general really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-21
Updated: 2014-04-21
Packaged: 2018-01-20 06:31:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1500224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitmarlowed/pseuds/kitmarlowed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jakes visits Morse in his cell.</p>
<p>[Coda to 2x4]</p>
<p>[[Spoilers for 2x4]]</p>
            </blockquote>





	i mean this, i'm okay (lie to me)

They apologise both together, a rush, when Jakes finally finds the courage to see him. Morse apologises for, and Jakes stifles a brittle laugh, not having the time to talk to him - not seeing it earlier. Jakes tells him it isn't his fault, which it isn't, and that he hid it and that's on him.

Jakes apologises, well, for everything. For not talking, for being too fucked up, too drunk, and too self-pitying to help when Morse needed him, when Fred Thursday needed him. He tells Morse that he's sorry, that what's happening to him now is his fault and he's sorry and he's sorry, continues until his hands shake with it and Morse reaches through the bars of his tiny little holding cell to ground him.

"It's not your fault, Jakes,” Morse says, hand cold against his but both warming. He gestures to the cell. “Not this. Never after all you've been through."

Jakes looks at their hands, small comfort, at least Morse in a cell is better than Morse in a hospital, Morse in the morgue. “I should’ve told you,” he starts and Morse tightens his grip on Jakes’ hand. “I should’ve told you when the name of that damn place came up, that way you’d’ve known what you were in for. I should’ve gone with you. Maybe then-”

“No.” The set of Morse’s mouth is back to stern, unforgiving. “We don’t need maybe, and you must not blame yourself for any of this. Corruption is no one’s fault but the corrupt.”

He knows Morse is lying, to save him guilt, that Morse thinks people who turn a blind eye to corruption are just as bad as the corrupt, the people who make monsters are the same as the monsters and the people who ignore the monsters too. He takes the comfort it’s meant though, he won’t refuse Morse now.

Jakes doesn’t cry, he’s cried enough, and if Morse can stay strong when everything’s against him and he has no easy way out of this mess Jakes can be strong against memories.

“They’re dead.” Morse says, and it helps, it does,  and he must have read the thoughts on Jakes’ face like he does suspects and victims. “They can’t hurt you now.”

“They’re hurting you, still,” says Jakes.

Morse sighs, leans his head against the bars and Jakes wants to do something but he doesn’t, just lets Morse look at the wall as they just breathe. “I’ll be fine,” he says eventually, lifting his head and looking Jakes right in the eye. “The truth will out, I mean it has too, that’s why we do this.”

He’s always been envious of that in Morse, the fire that’s so much stronger when it ought be beaten. If he’d have had that he wouldn’t have been so useless.

“I hope you’re right.”

**Author's Note:**

> Endeavour Support Group meets now.


End file.
